Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the ambassador for coming to share his insights with us on this matter. Obviously, all of our minds have been concentrated on the abduction of those unfortunate girls and, of course, we would wish that everything possible be done in order to get their safe release. It is something of a reflection on the UN and the Western media that the huge focus has only now arisen on this issue because, going back over a number of years, there have been many atrocities. Last year, for example, 29 students were burned alive at a school in northern Nigeria, which probably got one article and that was the end of it for some of our newspapers. A couple of months later, 40 more students were killed and, in February of this year, 59 boys attending a boarding school were shot dead. These atrocities have been ongoing.

The ambassador mentioned that this has been an issue since 2009. My understanding is that the group which is now called Boko Haram emerged following the 9/11 atrocities in the US, and that Mohammed Yusuf, the young man who established this group, went on to embrace a Taliban-inspired model of education in order to move away from Western education and towards the Koranic sciences. He was apparently arrested in 2009 and died in custody while he was handcuffed. Has that not led to a very significant increase in the radicalisation of that group and in the atrocities it has committed? I do not know that anybody has been brought to justice for that murder. As we know in this country, when British authorities got involved in murdering our citizens, it fed into the campaign, which continued because of the sympathy this generated. What is being done to bring those perpetrators to justice? That is my first question.

Second, the ambassador said it was categorically clear that the insurgency is not a religious war, as both Christians and Muslims have been killed and had their places of worship destroyed. As I said earlier, this issue has not been particularly well publicised in this country and the same is probably the case elsewhere in the Western world. My understanding is that many of these atrocities have concentrated on the Christian community and that various murders have taken place in churches around the main Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter. Indeed, it is significant that in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, 70 people were killed at Easter. I feel there is a sectarian element to this which probably reflects what is happening in many locations where there is conflict and where Islamic extremists are involved in those conflicts.

I understand there are 17,000 refugees in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The Jubilee Campaign, which is an aid group that has been functioning in Nigeria, has urged the Nigerian Government to bring those refugees back to Nigeria. It has also been campaigning for the UN and Western Governments to set up a victim relief fund in Nigeria. What assistance is the Nigerian Government getting on that front from the UN and Western countries?

I welcome some of the conference's recommendations, particularly those urging greater cohesion between the neighbouring countries. Is it not the case that Nigeria itself will need more external assistance from an intelligence and perhaps a military point of view in order to bring this conflict to an end? The conflict has been increasing over recent years. It is probably a reflection on the bodies charged with dealing with this, and on ourselves to an extent, as politicians in the Western world, that we have only come very belatedly to focus on it. I hope these girls will be released, but I would hate to think that afterwards the focus would move elsewhere rather than remaining on bringing this conflict to a conclusion. What does the ambassador believe Ireland and the European Union can do to assist that effort?